One future goal of the Mohawk River Research Center, Inc. is the compilation of data from various sources on the distribution of biological populations throughout the Mohawk River basin. The purpose would be to create a single location (database) that would house all of the data available both current and historical, and relate each data point via a geographic information system (GIS).

So far the MRRC has made a preliminary attempt at developing such a database. Presently benthic macroinvertebrate population data from the NYSDEC has been gathered. The data is being stored in a Microsoft Access database which is easily incorporated in the future into a GIS.

One of the sources of data the MRRC is considering using is the NYS Museum Ichthyology Collection. This collection is an incredible resource containing 1,000,000 specimens, dating back to the 1840s, and continues to grow today. If you are interested in finding information on fish populations visit the collections database search feature and see what it has to offer. In the future the MRRC will compile data using this same feature and then link it to our already established database of invertebrate information.

If you are interested in volunteering to assist in the completion of this project please contact us.